EXCLUSIVE: Dior Reopens Saint-Tropez Boutique With Mauro Colagreco Eateries

When Dior reopens its Saint-Tropez boutique on Monday, it will offer not only a fresh decor for creative director Jonathan Anderson’s designs, but also a full gastronomic experience, courtesy of Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco.

A fixture on the French Riviera thanks to his three-star restaurant Mirazur in Menton, Colagreco is opening Le Café Dior and a Monsieur Dior summer pop-up restaurant in the garden of the boutique, located inside a historic country house.

His menu echoes the bucolic setting. The Argentine-born chef shares founder Christian Dior’s love of nature, growing much of his fresh produce in his own garden, where flowers and vegetables are planted and harvested according to the moon’s cycles.

“I’ve often said that at Mirazur, we have 365 seasons,” he says. “In all my projects, I try to respect this micro-seasonal approach.”

With its topping reminiscent of four-leaf clovers, his Champ de Trèfles starter, a tartare of red prawns, is a dead ringer for Anderson’s Lady Dior Clover handbag. Meanwhile, the Corolle dessert, a frozen parfait dotted with delicate iced flowers, is a nod to Dior’s first haute couture collection presented in 1947.

Colagreco initially visited the Dior archives when he was preparing for the opening of his Café Dior at the French fashion house’s Gold House concept store in Bangkok in 2024.

“On my first visit, I was almost moved to tears because you see not just his work, but also the interpretations of all the different artistic directors of the house,” he recalls. “Christian Dior lives on beyond his designs thanks to these people who have kept his legacy alive.”

A UNESCO goodwill ambassador for biodiversity, the chef instinctively connected to the botanical references in Dior’s creations.

“He was very sensitive to the natural world, which really speaks to me, so obviously we wanted to use that as an entry gate into this world, also using as inspiration La Colle Noire, his home with a magnificent Mediterranean garden,” he says.

He sees a natural affinity between haute couture and haute gastronomy. “The most obvious is attention to detail, which come from the hand, from craftsmanship. We have similar standards and aesthetic sensibilities. I would say that perhaps the most important thing is a desire to trigger emotion,” Colagreco muses.

Seated on rattan armchairs under pastel-colored parasols, diners at Monsieur Dior can savor dishes à la carte or as part of a tasting menu. A three-course Déjeuner de Soleil experience is available at lunchtime, with a five-course Clair de Lune option in the evening.  

But Colagreco cautions the menu isn’t set in stone, since he uses locally sourced ingredients only when they’re at their peak. That window lasts just 20 days in the case of the apricots in the daisy-shaped La Marguerite tartlet served at the café, for instance.

Typically Mediterranean produce like eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peaches, cherries and figs will also cycle in and out of the kitchen.

“That doesn’t mean rewriting the whole menu, but the menu will evolve,” he explains. “As different ingredients lose their flavor, or are no longer available locally, we’re going to phase them out. Sometimes we tweak the recipe, sometimes we change it completely.”

As a result, he’s reluctant to single out a signature dish, though the bow-shaped Le Noeud, a coffee and chocolate dessert, comes close.

“When you become a restaurant with a lot of signatures, you become a museum, and I want to continue being creative,” he says “At Mirazur, we’ve been doing it for 20 years. It’s become like a game: I have clients who have come more than 100 times and have never eaten the same thing, so it’s a challenge and it forces us out of our comfort zone.”

Colagreco is on a roll, having celebrated the 20^th anniversary of Mirazur with a collaboration with legendary chef Ferran Adrià. Now at the head of 34 establishments worldwide, he plans to open four restaurants this year alone, in tandem with building a boutique hotel in Menton, set to bow in 2027.

“Each location has its identity, its rhythm, its energy,” he says. “I’ve chosen to never cut-and-paste, to remain faithful to my values. I try to create a universe adapted to each place and build something unique that has its own soul.”

Saint-Tropez has a particular energy. It’s a magnet for celebrity chefs, who increasingly are partnering with luxury brands on hospitality ventures at the intersection of fashion and food.

The Dior café opens Monday, in tandem with the expanded store, which had been closed for renovations since November 2024. It will operate year-round, while the seasonal Monsieur Dior restaurant will open from June 8 to October.